The 36th president of the United States seems strangely absent in the current celebrations. Perhaps Lyndon B. Johnson is not fondly remembered, but his triumphs paved the long road to Barack Obama’s historic presidency.

Just in time for the (post-)election, KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center” panelists Matt Miller, Tony Blankley, Arianna Huffington and Robert Scheer appeared together for a live show at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica on Sunday, braving a packed house as they took stock of the state of the union and discussed what might come next.

If Reagan had the voters’ permission to move away from strategies associated with liberalism, Obama has sanction to move away from conservative policies. And Reagan offers another lesson: His first moves were bold, and Obama should not fear following his example.

Why is Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens, a felon, leading in his race for re-election after pollsters predicted a decisive loss? It could have something to do with the fact that roughly one-third of the ballots have yet to be counted, and thousands more were just discovered.

Two states, Nebraska and Maine, have rules that call for splitting their electoral votes by congressional district. Now, for the first time in the modern era, one has done so. Barack Obama has won one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, according to the Omaha World-Herald. (Maine’s four votes went to Obama on Election Day.) The president-elect’s total now stands at 365.

As if to prevent surplus national exuberance over the electoral defeat of John McCain on Tuesday, the Labor Department announced that the country’s unemployment rate has hit a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, with 240,000 jobs lost in October as joblessness continues to increase in the face of economic turmoil.

Which U.S. presidential candidate did Iranians hope would win? Do Palestinians think President-elect Barack Obama will understand the needs and challenges of their region better than President Bush has?

After a long wait, North Carolina has been called for Barack Obama. With an Electoral College landslide already in hand for Obama, the state’s 15 electoral votes pump up his total to 364. That leaves one state dragging its heels. We’re looking at you, Mizzou. Let’s get this thing done.

There was symbolism as well as sadness in the passing of Barack Obama’s grandmother. When we’re young, we think change is a 100-yard dash. As we get older we think it’s a marathon. Eventually we see a relay race.

Perhaps the job that qualified Obama most for the presidency was the one most vilified by his opponents: community organizer. Yet community organizing is inherently at crosscurrents with the massive infusion of campaign cash.

A razor-thin margin in the contest for a Minnesota Senate seat between comedian Al Franken, the Democrat, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman will trigger an automatic recount that is likely to stretch into December.

John McCain was dignified and gracious in the face of overwhelming defeat Tuesday night. Barack Obama embraced his moment in history with yet another incredible speech. It brought tears to Jesse Jackson’s eyes and to countless others around the country.

With Obama’s victory, it’s time to hope that the era of racial backlash and wedge politics is over. Time to imagine that the patriotism of dissenters will no longer be questioned and that the world will no longer be divided between “values voters” and those without a moral compass.

Calls have been going out in Virginia and Pennsylvania, telling people to vote tomorrow, on Nov. 5, according to Jonah Goldman, director of Election Protection at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. Goldman says he doesn’t know who’s responsible, but similar misleading messages are being distributed via e-mail, FaceBook and fliers, often targeting young and minority voters.

Long lines were one form of fun awaiting voters around the country as they made their way to the polls on Tuesday; early voters also reported troubles of a more potentially prohibitive nature in battleground states.

From long lines to vote-flipping, the race to disenfranchise America’s voters is off to a depressing start. With that in mind, we spoke with leading election integrity journalist Brad Friedman of the BradBlog to get the lay of the land heading into Tuesday’s big showdown.

Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. But there is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues.

A good politician triumphs by adapting to the times and taking advantage of opportunities as they come. A great politician anticipates openings others don’t see and creates possibilities that were not there before.

Active-duty military members arguably have more to lose than anyone else in Tuesday’s election, but voting can be an obstacle course for servicemen and -women overseas. The Dallas Morning News reports that in 2006 only one-third of the absentee ballots requested by U.S. armed forces personnel abroad were counted.

Nixon’s former counsel has written a scathing review of conservative Republican politics and says the McCain-Palin ticket, which “scares the hell out of me,” fits the mold. How’s this for an endorsement?: “If Obama is rejected on November 4th for another authoritarian conservative like McCain, I must ask if Americans are sufficiently intelligent to competently govern themselves.”

This weekend brought yet another startling installment from the Sarah Palin School of International Relations, in which she talks about “needing to really shore up the strategies that we need over in Iraq and Iran to win these wars” during the first 100 days of her time in the White House with John McCain.

Just in time for Election Day, actors David Strathairn and Paul Giamatti are resurrecting the formidable historical figures of Abraham Lincoln and his rival for the Senate in 1858, Stephen A. Douglas, respectively, in L.A. Theatre Works’ production of “The Rivalry,” Norman Corwin’s play about the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates.

What is it with politicians and the poetics of town names? John McCain is launching his electoral last stand in a place called, seriously, Defiance, Ohio. The rough ‘n’ tumblin’, dissident, anti-status-quo Republican candidate for president is following in the footsteps of Barack Obama, who campaigned in Unity, N.H., with Hillary Clinton after a barbed primary.

When Sarah Palin brags about the self-reliance of her state, she doesn’t mention the mobile command communications vehicle, bought with federal dollars to help keep her home town of 7,028 safe from terrorism. Thanks in part to an anti-terrorism bonanza, Alaska is one of the greatest per-capita beneficiaries of federal funding among the 50 states.

Governments, like corporations and modern organizations of all kinds, make much of systematically teaching “lessons learned” to those newly arrived to responsibilities, yet they seem infrequently to succeed.

Sen. John McCain’s ideological ties to the Bush-Cheney administration have mostly passed beneath the radar of the mainstream media, but if McCain loses the presidential race to Barack Obama, his neoconservative legacy could erupt into the open with a force that should not be underestimated.

OK, so Ronald Reagan isn’t around to actually endorse anyone. But that doesn’t stop political operatives from invoking his presidency to boost their candidate. A new, liberal Colorado-based group called Progressive Future is bringing back the Gipper to put in a plug for Barack Obama, while the conservative Let Freedom Ring calls Obama the “anti-Reagan.”

The real issues of the American presidential election are the future of the economy and the future of American foreign policy. The one seems already settled. The second seems to unite John McCain and Barack Obama in support of a program doomed to fail.